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This mind thought that all it had to do was stop believing
in guilt and it would be at peace and any process would be over. Then it found
peace, stopped believing in guilt, but found that it was still in a process.
And that process is acclimating to peace. When a mind is used to conflict it
does not immediately accept peace.
A couple of weeks ago (http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2016/03/sorry-no-incantations-here.html) I wrote about how a mind used to forms (thoughts,
ideas, feelings, material forms) experiences the Formlessness of Truth as emptiness.
The contrast between form and Formlessness is jarring at first. Form is
boundaries and busyness and contrasts and conflicts. Formlessness is
boundlessness and stillness and the same throughout. This is Absolute Peace!
What else could be peace but emptiness? It seems so obvious once you experience
It.
But Absolute Peace is not the first peace to which you have
to acclimatize. The first peace you have to get used to is the peace that
occur…

Sometimes students tell me they want to reach a state of
bliss or to be joyful all the time. What they do not understand is if they
attained these states they would not experience them as bliss or joy because
their new state would become the “new normal”. Bliss and joy are really only
felt in contrast to unhappiness. Peace is only felt in contrast to conflict.
Love, or wholeness, is only felt in contrast to lack. They are all personal experiences.
And they are only the flipside of the experiences that they are set up to
replace.
I could say that Truth is the absence of all feelings and
experiences. But really It is not even that. Truth is not defined by an absence
of any kind. It cannot be understood in contrast to anything. Truth is beyond
all comparisons or contrasts because It is beyond all duality.
That which experiences pain and seeks to be out of pain are
the same. So to seek to feel “good” is to seek for only the flip-side of
feeling “bad”. They are the same coin and nothing …

Despite its use of Christian symbols there are many ideas in
A Course in Miracles that are
radically different from Christianity. In fact, they undo what is traditionally
taught in Christianity. It is important for students of ACIM to not only
recognize this but to meditate on these differences. Doing so clarifies ACIM
and how learning what it teaches can set you free. The betrayal of the
Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own
imagining. His reality is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but
awakened. (T-17.I.1) A major tenet in the
ego's insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence
that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance, and the acceptance of the self
as sinful is perceived as holiness. And it is this doctrine that replaces the
reality of the Son of God as his Father created him, and willed that he be
forever. (T-19.II.4)
In a nutshell, the fundamental and radical difference
between A Course in Mira…

The experience of Truth is Wholeness. Lack does not exist in
Truth even as an idea. But when you are used to identifying with an ego
(personal thought system) and you come out of the experience of Truth, Truth
strikes you as alarmingly empty because there is no form There. You know you
felt whole in Truth but you are frightened because you cannot understand this
with the thought system (ego) with which you are used to thinking. How can a
thought system that is a form itself and is all about forms understand that
Formlessness is an experience of Abundance?
If without form there is Wholeness then the reverse of this
must be that with form there is lack. When you see this it is so obvious! Of
course when Limitless Mind is reduced to limited forms (thoughts, ideas,
feelings, actions, material forms) the experience is lack. No wonder that the
pursuit of forms to fill a sense of lack only increase one’s sense of lack.
If you just stop and be,
what is lacking? You may feel an emotional empt…

Sometimes I sense from my readers or clients that my
practical answers to their problems are not what they seek. They want what I
call a “woo-woo” answer. They want a transcendent answer that will not involve
the tedium of dealing with life in the world on the terms of the world. They
want an answer that will not involve the pain of examining their behavior and excavating
their motivations. They want the “right thought”, the present day’s equivalent
of a magical incantation, to resolve their problems at the level of form.
For example, let’s say a client has been told by her lawyer
that she needs to file for bankruptcy. She’s upset and wants to know how she
“created” this situation in her life. I ask questions about her financial
situation, her financial choices, etc. She doesn’t want to go there. She just
wants to talk about how she can change her mind to transform her situation.
What she doesn’t realize is that her thoughts do not conjure situations at the
level of form out of thin…

I have been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1984, a life coach since 2000, and a mentor for students of A Course in Miracles and 4 Habits for Inner Peace since 2006. You can learn more about me and what I offer at my website, www.acimmentor.com.